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code. If you link a program with the library, you must provide
complete object files to the recipients so that they can relink them
with the library, after making changes to the library and recompiling
it. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
Our method of protecting your rights has two steps: (1) copyright
the library, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal
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Also, for each distributor's protection, we want to make certain
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Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
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we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's
free use or not licensed at all.
Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary
GNU General Public License, which was designed for utility programs. This
license, the GNU Library General Public License, applies to certain
designated libraries. This license is quite different from the ordinary
one; be sure to read it in full, and don't assume that anything in it is
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The reason we have a separate public license for some libraries is that
they blur the distinction we usually make between modifying or adding to a
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changing the library, is in some sense simply using the library, and is
analogous to running a utility program or application program. However, in
a textual and legal sense, the linked executable is a combined work, a
derivative of the original library, and the ordinary General Public License
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